Language of the Frogs

Tonight when the frogs are speaking their love language,

the forests still stand in all their giving,

I soak in the waters of loneliness

thinking my cradle never destined this,

not the loss of any children,

not the end of any love,

not for anyone

born to this earth-promised happiness

to lose it all,

but then, what did it damage

to lose everything,

maybe the heart,

or maybe not completely,

because I still love the fields of morning

the brilliance of dew shed by night’s many skins,

the bird I watch in a nest of feather and horse hair

with her five speckled eggs,

and in the first smell of morning

when frogs praise the arrival of rain,

and tadpoles swim in the shrinking pond.

I step outside in all the sound

and step outside.